Given that the end state is no more chattering idiots cluttering up the planet, that works out just fine.
Seriously? The goal of every statist who lives is to decree that their way can and should apply to all others.
Please explain. Because that is not even close to self-evident. And while you're at it, please define "statist", so we're on the same page and not using strawmen.
A statist is anyone who believes the state is more important than the individual. Statists inevitably favor authoritarian governments. Authoritarians frown on allowing anyone to opt out of their governance models. Witness Ancalagon and his “everyone should live in high density urban hellscapes for efficiency.” Witness the old Soviet bloc, which had to erect physical walls to keep their own populations from fleeing. Witness people like Nova, who is so terrified of the idea that two-party politics might mean she doesn’t always get her way that she wants to guarantee single-party rule. And so on.
No, the problem is casually imposing on others and telling them to mind their own business when they object.
Ok, we're on the same page then. Not so sure here, though. @Ancalagon and @Nova would have to weigh in to confirm that you are not distorting their positions. Nevertheless, I still don't see the "irony" in me telling you that anyone choosing to be self-reliant is just fine, but decreeing that everyone ought to be is not.
Because it’s the exact same sentiment in the opposite direction. Decreeing “no one should” is exactly the same offense as “everyone should.” It removes personal choice.
No. Saying "Everyone should do what the government tells them" (a statist position) is not at all the same thing as saying "no one should be able to get help from the government if they need it." Saying what everyone should do removes personal choice; on that we agree. But disagreeing with the sentiment that no should be allowed to do something increases personal choice. Why does this confuse you so much?
So ... people who are dying because they can't afford healthcare has chosen that? People who have scrimped and saved all their lives chose to have all that hard work and savings go down the tube because through no fault of their own they contracted an incurable disease. You are so full of shit this is why you can't think straight.
Not that I've seen. When's the last time you teamed up with evenflow to strangle a subsidized corn farmer to death? It's been awhile.
Aaaand we're back to the fantasy that everyone is a helpless victim of circumstance, in no way responsible for the outcomes they suffer.
Not everyone is, but the point that this is even a possibility (and conceivably very widespread) is a fact that you are disingenuously dodging every time it is pointed out to you. Thus, you aren't interested in addressing complexities or in addressing reality, just in repeating your simplistic formula. So your making the charge of "fantasy" of others is risible.
If it's not true sometimes, then you both concede that some people have made their own fucking beds and need to lie in them.
You're stepping over it so you don't have to deal with it. But it exists and now yes, you have to answer because you said it doesn't exist.
Some have, some haven't. You choose to punish those that haven't for the actions of those that have. Presumed innocent wouldn't enter into your legal system, would it?
You stepped over the fact that some people who have done everything right still end up in situations in which they need help - or worse, a greedy fuckstain of a system robs them of everything for which they worked and you just want say "fuck 'em, they should have made better choices". That's not right and you know it. You stepped right over that fact and continued on with people who make bad choices. Go back. Deal with the people who made the right choices and still ended up in shit.
I will need to see with my own eyes that they "did everything right." Most people bullshit and rationalize to make that claim. If you can't be bothered with even a half-assed effort at budgeting, you didn't do everything right. If you drop out of high school and have a felony record before you're old enough to vote, you didn't do everything right. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and go into debt to buy a bunch of junk to feather your nest, you didn't do everything right. If you have a baby when you can barely support yourself, you didn't do everything right. If you walked out on a steady job because it interfered with your social life or you can't be bothered to get out of bed on time, you didn't do everything right. If you get yourself addicted to something and lose your ass in the process, you didn't do everything right. If you go 100k into debt chasing a degree in a field that has no real hope of generating steady income, you didn't do everything right. I insist on expansive free will, but the consequence of your choices must be yours to own. That is the bargain. You're not a victim when society declines to fund your second and third chances to get your shit together. "Robs." As in taken by force, or by deception? Or did they ignorantly, but voluntarily enter into a situation that was to their detriment?
I'm talking about adults with no criminal record or activity - ever. People who got their education and got a decent job and met someone just as responsible and they both saved and got married and saved some more and bought a house and saved some more and had kids and still saved some more and paid for their children to go to college and still saved some more and when they finally turn 65 and retire with hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and 401Ks and they did everything they were supposed to do. THEN Then one gets cancer. and eats through their savings like stoner going through a bag of chips. Before you know it, it's gone. All of it. and if that isn't theft, and a fucked up medical system. You'll have to show me something worse. Cuz I can't even begin to imagine anything worse.
That is a highly stacked, carefully idealized hypothetical, and not representative of the typical person looking to society with their hand out. If everyone behaved like that, there probably would be no issue helping out with that bit of dire bad luck. But they don't, and you goddamned well know it.
That is the norm for many people in the US. In fact, there was a tv show about one such couple. You may have watched it. It was called Breaking Bad.
I realize this is now a tangent from a tangent, and maybe it should be spun off, but maybe it'll be a quick one ... I'm curious about your more detailed take on this, both because I figure being an American expat in Europe probably gives you an interesting perspective, and because I know you're not especially bound by ideology. I'm totally open to the possibility that the American military is bigger than it needs to be, but I also think vacuums tend to get filled ... and of all the countries that are currently capable of filling a global power vacuum, the U.S. seems like the best option. How far can the U.S. scale back its global operations before the problems caused by its absence start to outweigh the problems caused by its presence?
